Winter Programming: S-B Pinewood Derby Race - Relive your youth.

[blondterror]

Our troop allowed use of axel locations extended out on the body. The wheels were trued & polished on a mandrel and the axels polished on a drill press. Std graphite lubrication. Those slots in the body are often not true and many kids cars self destruct over several runs with axels falling out of the slots.

Axel holes made with drill press so they were dead on. Some weight is far back in the car... car still has to track straight to be fast... more stored kinetic energy since the start is on an incline... cars with more weight in the rear 1/2 of the car accelerate past other cars as they hit the flat part of the track.

The unlimited class will be a kick... I've still got plenty of other unmentioned tricks in my tank.

Some plug shops will turn into speed shops the 2 wks before the "Derby"


BT

[JohnR]

Originally Posted by blondterror

Our troop allowed use of axel locations extended out on the body. The wheels were trued & polished on a mandrel and the axels polished on a drill press. Std graphite lubrication. Those slots in the body are often not true and many kids cars self destruct over several runs with axels falling out of the slots.

Axel holes made with drill press so they were dead on. Some weight is far back in the car... car still has to track straight to be fast... more stored kinetic energy since the start is on an incline... cars with more weight in the rear 1/2 of the car accelerate past other cars as they hit the flat part of the track.

The unlimited class will be a kick... I've still got plenty of other unmentioned tricks in my tank.

Some plug shops will turn into speed shops the 2 wks before the "Derby"


BT

Might need to have a kids class too.

"Some plug shops will turn into speed shops the 2 wks before the "Derby""

[beamie]

I still may have 3 of my cars around from the 70's. One of them won the grand championship in my area. Then went onto the regionals and lost.

I remember my dad lubricating the wheels with sperm whale oil whick I still have a bottle of. Apparently this oil never sticks to avoid that initial start. Watch makers use to use it. Don't know if it helped but those were some fun days......